Steve Luxenberg, Senior Editor at the Washington Post is shocked and baffled to learn that his mother, who is 80, grew up with a sister that he had never heard about. After his mother dies, he begins to search for answers and finds many more questions. Why did his mother lie about her life and tell everyone that she was an only child? Did she tell this lie even to her husband? Why did his mother change her name from Bertha to Beth?
Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into A Family Secret, Luxenberg’s real-life search for answers to his family’s mystery is a compelling read. He soon discovers that this mysterious sister was both physically and mentally handicapped, and that she lived with her sister and parents until her early twenties. Of course, this does nothing to satisfy his questions. Instead, it raises others: why would his mother and grandparents have hidden this information? What became of this sister Annie?
While he attempts to conduct clinical research into these questions, Luxenberg is torn between his loyalty to his mother (there must be some explanation) and a growing realization that Annie was abandoned by her family out of shame. Luxenberg interviews former medical personnel from Eloise, the state mental institution, researches medical records, and interviews family members. He learns that Annie was institutionalized at the age of 21, that his grandmother visited her regularly, but that neither his mother nor grandfather ever visited her there. Annie was eventually transferred to a hospital further away and never saw her family again. She died at the age of 53.
As the author uncovers these truths he begins to search for answers in old correspondence between his mother and father, learning more about their relationship and his family’s background during the Holocaust and about his father’s personal struggles as a soldier during World War Two when he had something resembling a nervous breakdown - another closely held family secret.
At the same time that Annie’s Ghosts is a story of one family’s struggle with mental illness, it’s also a sad statement of a sordid chapter in the treatment of persons with mentally illness. As recently as the 1960s and '70s, mentally handicapped family members were a stigma to be hidden away in institutions, often permanently abandoned by their families and forgotten. Facilities such as Eloise State Hospital in Michigan were crowded and treatment was not focused on recovery.
Annie’s Ghosts is a memoir that examines the responsibility that families have to one another and the failure of one family to claim that responsibility. The author forgives his mother for her human failings while managing also to highlight the inhumanity of hiding and abandoning Annie. A good book improves us - Luxenberg has done an excellent job of presenting these hard and ugly truths in a way that makes us resolve to do better.
Article comments
1 - kitty
Reading Jennifer Lane's review of these two books make me interested in reading the books myself. She gives us enough of the book to make it sound interesting without giving anything away.